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eintausendfünfhunderteins

Helping friends is usually fun, unless you have to help them to move all their stuff from one house to another. Luckily my friend Kazim Kenzo didn't move, but decided to start his own watch brand. Helping him by designing his first collection was a lot of fun and being able to wear the results even more.

From left to right, the EINTAUSEND, the FÜNFHUNDERT and the smaller sized EINS. The two dive watches on the left got their names from their depth rating, 1000 meters and 500 meters accordingly.

Some nifty little details make these watches even more fun. The divers for example incorporate a unique system that lets one very easily change the bezels. Amazing how the EINTAUSEND almost becomes a completely different watch after the alternative, engraved stainless steel bezel is mounted on the case.

Same system, but different size and style bezels apply for the FÜNFHUNDERT.

The EINS is a very solid every day sports watch and comes with two dial colors, black like the divers and also white. But it's not simply white. The dial is actually painted with a new kind of luminiscent paint called BG W9, which glows in a stunning blue in the dark.

Since Kazim is not allowed to use his own name for the brand, due to the name KENZO™ beeing a registered tardemark of the luxury goods giant LVMH, he decided to use a name, that incorporates both his an my first name, KAZIMON. Was I flattered? Hell yeah! This is what the logo looks like, which I also designed:

The logo is milled into the case back, which not only looks extremely cool, it also serves a purpose. With each watch comes a specially made tool, that fits perfectly into the logo and can then be turned with a little force thus opening the screw-in case back.

Okay, I admit, only trained watchmakers should do this, since the Kazimons are powered by mechanical, swiss movements, but it's a very unique feature that you won't find anywhere else.

Other features are also top shelf, like a sapphire crystal, anti magnetic inner case, screw-in crowns, high grade stainless steel for the cases of the EINTAUSEND and the EINS, Titanium for the FÜNFHUNDERT. The EINTAUSEND also has a built-in automatic helium escape valve for saturation diving.

aviation

Shame on me, more than half a year without posting anything in my blog. I have been kept very busy since then, if that counts as an excuse … I also turned 40, is that any better?
Anyway, much has happened in the last few months, some very interesting graphic design work as well as new watch models from Steinhart, one being the AVIATION, which is being built using the same case that I originally designed for the Le Mans GT. As the name suggests in a very subtle way, it is inspired by instruments used in aviation. Instead of being 'just' a cockpit clock for the wrist, as others have done before, the AVIATION incorporates design details from different flight instruments as well as original elements. The hands for example are 'taken' from an altimeter, while the numbers are an individual design element not found in any airplane. Here's a picture of one of the three models on my fourty year old wrist:

Not too shabby, huh?! And if that wasn't enough already, about two weeks ago i helped settle a deal between Steinhart and the third largest watch enthusiast forum in the world, the Watch Lounge, to produce a limited edition of the AVIATION for its members, the so-called SAWLE. The limitation will include 333 watches all together, no more, no less, prototypes excluded of course. Four days ago, on sunday, the watch was offered to the community via the forum and about three hours ago the first 100 where already sold, merely based on this drawing of mine:

WOW, that definately exceeded my expectations, what a success!
What else is new? Well, I've been on a low carb/high fat diet for the last three weeks and I'm really missing potatoes, pasta and sugar in my coffee. But I feel better and I'm losing weight, which keeps me going and helps me eat my 3-6 eggs in the morning, which I'm not always happy about. But I'm starting to bore you now ...

gnosis is a pretty thing

Well, what do you know, I finally won a prize, sort of. My artwork for the novel/thriller «Gnosis» by Adam Fawer was selected by Stiftung Buchkunst (roughly translates to Foundation Book Art) as the prettiest book of 2007, sort of. It's not THE prettiestl, but one of 45 selections out of 1,056 entries.

When I went to their (Stiftung Buchkunst) website, I was slightly irritated to find someone elses name instead of mine being credited for concept and design of the book. Turned out, it was the typesetter's name, the guy that designed/typeset the inside of the book. My name will be added for the complete listing later, probably next year, hoorray!

captain kidd's pirateship found

Resting in less than 10 feet of Caribbean seawater, the wreckage of Quedagh Merchant, the ship abandoned by the scandalous 17th century pirate Captain William Kidd as he raced to New York in an ill-fated attempt to clear his name, has escaped discovery -- until now. An underwater archaeology team from Indiana University announced on Dec. 13th the discovery of the remnants.

I admit, I don't know a lot about Captain Kidd and I don't really care much for the remains of his ship. But take a look at the watch this student is wearing while documenting the wreckage ... pretty darn cool to see the "Triton" (see below) in its element like that!

racing time

Yes, I admit, I'm into motorsports. Boys will be boys, I guess. I especially like the cars of the era when I was born – 1968. Back in those days Commendatore Enzo Ferrari refused to sell his company to Ford, which in effect led Ford to build their legendary GT40 race car, my all time favorite dream car.
Since i will probably never be able to afford on of those totally not-p.c. Gran Turismos, I decided to design a trilogy of watches to commemorate some of the most beautiful machines ever built, whose only purpose it is, to drive around in circles as fast as possible.

I am again very thankful for Günter Steinhart's efforts to actually produce and make available this little dream of mine! It wasn't really all that tough to convince him though, he's also still a boy who likes fast toys.

The silver ones stands for the german racers like Porsche and Mercedes (called Silberpfeile - silver arrows). The red one pays tribute to the italian Bella Machinas like Alfa Romeo, Maserati, etc. The blue one is of course dedicated to the above mentioned Ford GT40 as sponsored by Gulf Oil, who are also responsible for the beautiful and legendary paint job.

I know, there's one missing in british racing green ... maybe later.

in vino veritas

I'm currently designing a catalog for my wine merchant, which is a lot of fun, and not only because i love wine. This particular wine merchant is not your average shop, it's rather an office with an adjacent storage facility, a wholesale dealer that does 98% of his business with restaurants. Including my favorite restaurant, I might add. So it's not really surprising, that they also carry my favorite wine from my favorite wine maker, the Barolos made by the Burlotto family.
Anyway, to come to the point: for their annual catalog i have recieved tons of Photographs, including this shot of some rather vintage Barolos.

Upon zooming in on the image, i saw one of the nicest, handrawn and handtyped labels i have ever seen. It really is a shame, that Burlotto has replaced them in the early 90's. Here's a close-up:

Now I like this wine even more. Excuse me while I pay a visit to my cellar ...

#2

When I was younger, i was absolutely sure, that I never wanted to get married and never ever wanted any children ... yes, I was an idiot when I was younger!

On tuesday the 30th of january, at exactely 22:22 my lovely wife(!) gave birth to our second(!) child(!), a girl named Carla. Her big brother Luis (7) is proudly wearing a red t-shirt that says "big brother". But nobody is prouder than me at the moment, proud of my wife for her patience and courage, and for not letting me forget, what an idiot I would still be today, if it wasn't for her!

rejects

I once had a client from the music industry, whom I designed CD covers for. I usually made three good designs and an ugly one for him. He always chose the ugly one.
This was a long time ago and I don't work for the music industry anymore, good designs still get rejected sometimes though. But instead of trashing my rejected designs, I can post them here instead.

The first one is a book by Mark Kuntz, called "the last smoker", which is probably a book about the last man still smoking cigarettes, or maybe he just feels like that, i don't know. I like the design, because it has the same look as the Lucky Strike print campaign, that seems to have been running for ever here in Germany. It also implies, that the last smoker feels he has to hide his habit. maybe too subtle, maybe too far away, i don't know, but it was rejected.

Just like the second one, a mystery novel by Declan Hughes. With this one i'm pretty sure that it was too subtle. They probably wanted something that screamed murder, blood and guts. I thought, since it has the word blood in its title twice (blood of my blood), i might try something different. Well, rejected anyway, but i like the handmade typography on the foggy, monochrome image.

improbable

Every once in a while I get to design book covers, which is something I really enjoy doing due to the creative possibilities involved in the process. Most of the time photographs from rights-managed stock is preferred, but when I have an idea that involves a typographic solution, I offer it to my client, sometimes even with success. As was the case with a book by Adam Fawer, simply called 0. (zero), a thriller about a statistics Ph.D. student who can tap into the collective unconcious after having recieved experimental treatment for his temporal lobe epilepsy and then gets chased by the FBI and the russian mob ... whatever, I didn't read it.

More important is the fact, that the publisher loved the design and that it made it into production, eventhough the author's name is set in 9pt on the cover. I just finished designing Fawer's second book. Unfortunately I cannot show it here, since it's not yet published.

triton, son of neptune

In early '06 I was introduced to Günter Steinhart in order to help him out with his watch designs. Basically just producing some photoshop mock-ups of his upcoming watches and proof-drawing some dials. It didn't take long until i showed him some of my designs, which led him to comission me to design a professional dive watch for him. The result is the TRITON, which will hit the consumer market in the first quarter of 2007.

There will be two dial options that not only differ in color, but also in the dial-layout. At 45mm diameter without the screw-down crown, this will be a huge chunk of stainless steel. Further specs include a water-resistance of 300 meters (approx. 1,000 feet), a thick saphire crystal with anti-reflective coating, 24mm lugwidth, a date at 6 o'clock and a 60 clicks uni-directional rotating bezel. The automatic movement (Sellita SW200), as well as the watch are, of course, swiss made.